Saturday, August 23, 2008

Katipunan Traffic: Aerial View of Katipunan Avenue (in the Vicinity of Ateneo de Manila University)

. Caption: An aerial view of Katipunan Avenue (in the vicinity of Ateneo de Manila University). Map extracted from wikimapia.org by Raffy Saldaña (http://raffysaldana.blogspot.com/)


NOTE:

To understand why traffic congestion occurs in Katipunan Avenue in the vicinity of Ateneo de Manila University, one has to consider the location and the movement of people and vehicles in the area.

As can be seen from the map shown above, a major part of Katipunan Avenue between the flyover and University of the Philippines-Diliman is covered by Ateneo de Manila University and Miriam College. Katipunan Avenue divides the combined area of Ateneo and Miriam and Xavierville Subdivision in Loyola Heights. In the morning, there is an influx of vehicles crossing Katipunan Avenue from Xavierville going to Ateneo and Miriam. Also, vehicles coming from La Vista Subdivision (near Miriam College) have to cross to the other side of Katipunan and make U-turns going to Ateneo or Miriam.

A similar event occurs near lunchtime (around 11:30 a.m.) when pre-school students from Ateneo and Miriam leave their respective schools, contributing to the traffic congestion during lunchtime (from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.). In the afternoon, around 3:00 p.m. another traffic congestion occurs when grade school students from Ateneo and Miriam leave their schools. The next traffic congestion occurs between 4:30 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. when high school students, college students, and employees of Ateneo and Miriam leave the two campuses.

However, a major contributing factor to the traffic congestion in Katipunan Avenue (in the vicinity of Ateneo and Miriam) is the fact that Katipunan Avenue (which was made part of C-5 Road, a national highway) ends at the La Vista area in the intersections of C.P. Garcia (near University of the Philippines-Diliman) and Tandang Sora Avenue -- which are much narrower roads compared to Katipunan Avenue.

COMMENT:

TO THE METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (MMDA): NO MATTER WHAT TRAFFIC SCHEME YOU "EXPERIMENT" IN KATIPUNAN AVENUE, IF YOU HAVE NOT SOLVED THE STRUCTURAL LIMITATION OF KATIPUNAN AVENUE (THAT IS, IF KATIPUNAN AVENUE IS NOT YET EXTENDED TO COMMONWEALTH AVENUE), THERE WILL ALWAYS BE TRAFFIC CONGESTION IN KATIPUNAN AVENUE (IN THE VICINITY OF ATENEO AND MIRIAM).

WHY SHOULD THE LOYOLA HEIGHTS COMMUNITY BE "PUNISHED" BY YOUR TRAFFIC "EXPERIMENTS" WHEN YOU KNOW FOR A FACT THAT THE AREA OF KATIPUNAN AVENUE (IN THE VICINITY OF ATENEO AND MIRIAM) IS A SCHOOL/RESIDENTIAL AREA?

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